​The sixth (and final of the season) "Wednesday Wisdom Event" takes place on Wednesday, May 11th, 7:30 - 9:00 pm at St. Mark's (1725 North New Hope Rd, Raleigh, NC). It will feature the Rev. Sterling Freeman, on the topic "African American Spirituality Engaging the World." In addition to serving as Program Director for the African American Denominational House at Chautauqua, The Rev. Sterling Freeman is a facilitator and trainer in the areas of leadership and organizational development. His range of interests includes homiletics and theologies of liberation and justice.

​The spiritual orientation known as deep ecumenism represents one of Yavneh’s core values, and one of the most obvious ways in which we and Jewish Renewal worldwide are striving to reframe the religious ecology of our planet. In support of this aim, our community has created the Yavneh Center for Deep Ecumenism to develop programming and learning opportunities for the wider Triangle faith community.

Contemporary theologian Rev. Matthew Fox describes Deep Ecumenism as Many wells, One river -- one inexhaustible divine source, many ways of tapping into its blessings. At sessions scheduled for the second Wednesday of each month December 2015 - May 2016, with a couple of special sessions during the summer, representatives from multiple faith traditions will engage with one another and with participants to explore the richness of shared spiritual learning. Expect to learn with Jews, Christians, Jains, Hindus, Buddhists, and Moslems as we approach next September's "immersion weekend" of devotional learning, "Among the Waters."

One of the gifts of Deep Ecumenism is its capacity to help us moderate reflexive "truth claims" and to relax our adversarial posture relative to "the other." As Christianity and Judaism have dramatically "othered" one another for two millenia, we begin with an evening's discussion of how Chrisian-Jewish spiritual friendship can open to us the mythic truths embodied in each other's religious narratives and practices, so that we may begin to discern the particular gifts each tradition brings to the divine mosaic.

Each session is self-contained; attend them all or just one! There is no charge to attend, although donations in support of the Center gratefully accepted. Please let us know if you plan to attend: RSVP.